B.C. father who killed his 3 children doesn't meet high-risk designation: lawyer

NEW WESTMINSTER — A man found not responsible for killing his three children is being properly managed, his psychosis is under control and he doesn’t fit the definition of a high-risk accused, his lawyer said Thursday.

Rishi Gill told a British Columbia Supreme Court judge that Allan Schoenborn, 49, still has a long way to go in his mental-health treatment and is dealing with serious anger issues, but that doesn’t put him in the high-risk category.

“There is nothing in the anger situation that takes him out of the regular stream. It’s the psychosis risk that puts him into the high-risk. And that psychosis is under control,” Gill said.

“The proof is in the pudding,” he added. “What happens when his behaviour deteriorates, even under mental-health criteria? He is managed properly within that scheme.”

In 2010, a judge found Schoenborn not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder for stabbing his daughter and smothering his two sons, aged five to 10, at the family’s home in Merritt in April 2008.

The trial heard that Schoenborn was experiencing psychosis at the time of the killings and thought he was saving his children from sexual and physical abuse, though no evidence suggested this was the case.

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Gill said he does not intend to dispute the “brutal nature” of his client’s offences.

A high-risk designation would bar Schoenborn from receiving escorted outings into the community as part of his treatment and would extend the time between his review board hearings from one to three years.

Crown prosecutor Wendy Dawson told the court on Thursday that Schoenborn’s lengthy history of violence and the likelihood his psychosis will relapse means he poses an unacceptable risk to public safety and he warrants the high-risk label.